Monday, September 12, 2016

TempleCon Afterthoughts

So, I went to TempleCon last month. Sorry for the silence, been a bit busy with work ramping up, and after having a 2 con month I've tried to dial back my gaming until my brain recovered. I had a pretty horrible showing at TempleCon, and below I'll try to break down the gist of my experiences...

I literally put this list together while stuck in traffic outside of Albany a few hours before the tournament...

I was going to run triple cannoneers (hence the extra point), but my third one wasn't fully painted so I tossed in the Aradus. This list is very similar to how I ran Morghoul in Mk2, with a ranged battlegroup that can still be cranked up to absurd levels in melee when necessary. The idea is to soften up opponents on the approach, and rely on rush+abuse+enrage for some 12" pow 20 alpha action from the cannoneers.

This is the "Cougar Town" list I've been running with Makeda1 quite a bit. I really like it, though I have no idea why because on paper I think it looks like trash to me. Makeda hides in a bubble of scarabs with Orin, to play up front with her feat and carnage, while you jam like mad with Bloodrunners and Ferox (hiding one in the ass-end of nowhere just in case).

Champions Matches:

Round 1: Matched up against Khador. One list was a pSorcha assassination/ranged heavy list. The other was some variant of the infamous Man in the Machine + all the Machines list. I felt I had to drop pMorghoul, as there was no way Makeda could crack 12 khador heavies. I wound up paired into Sorcha1. Playing Outlast.

The game was a bit of a back and forth slog at first. I didn't feel too worried about it, until Morghoul was killed by Behemoth and a bunch of boosted rockets. I'm bad with Morghoul now, it seems. I wound up moving a bit too hard to the left zone, when it looked like I was definitely losing the right flank.

Round 2:

Dropped Makeda1 into Morghoul1 soldiers list (I can see why this is popular). Dice saved me a lot here, when my feat turn met hungry-hungry Aradus who whiffed and let me bring back a few things. we were playing pit iirc, and I just jammed and went for clock, with Makeda hanging back on my flag and upkeeping spells/casting carnage every turn in her little bunker.

Round 3:

Makeda1 vs Denny1 with a bunch of fast models. Round 2 my ferox ate a bunch of light jacks and Makeda feated. From there I just kept swamping my opponent, denying them any attrition play. Finally scarabs ate Aiakos, and I managed to surround Denny with Ferox. She survived, but the following round the scarabs came in and ate her. Was quite satisfying.

Round 4:

Makeda1 vs Denny. Did an early feat with my stuff held back to stay safe from a sepulchre and some other guns. Denny counter-feated and wiped out my Ferox. It took most of her army to do it, so I don't consider it that big of a loss. A bigger mistake cost me dearly, when instead of rushing a gladiator I... didn't. Despoiler tried to one man a Sepulchre, and left it on 10 boxes instead of having help from an enraged Gladiator. He then got killed in retaliation and I didn't contest. Wound up going a few more turns, but scenario loss. Instead of cleaning up all the threats to my heavies and bullying the board, I went down. It sucked a lot.

I came into the tournament expecting a lot of circle and legion shenanigans. This list crutches on delivering a feat turn that wipes out squishably heavies with leaping cat waterfalls, while providing Rasheth with plenty of highly mobile arc-nodes.

I wanted to be able to remove any model I disliked at leisure from ranged with this list. And it managed to not disappoint in this regard.

Standard Issue Matches:

Round 1:

Ran into Circle, pKromac with a bunch of medium infantry and a few beasts. I dropped Rasheth, thinking my Ferox could, on feat turn, destroy just about anything on the field. Scenario was the 2 flags on the centerline, with objectives on each players side.

First round stuff ran a lot. Round 2 I feated, ate a unit of skinwalkers with Ferox, blasted some small based infantry with Breath of Corruption, and took out a heavy and injured a Gorax pretty heavily. The counterattack was pretty blunt, and the following turn my opponent took even more losses. I managed to start scoring on scenario, and had taken out his heavies by the 4th round, when Kromac came in to try and get some work done. The next turn I just tossed him out and killed his entire army, scoring more points. Finally I killed him and went to 5 on scenario, losing only a handful of Ferox and some paingiver arc nodes.

Round 2: Legion, Abby2. I dropped Rasheth, this MAYBE a mistake.

Double hellmouths managed to deploy just behind 2 flags, one of them entirely behind a forest. Top of 2 I feat and get Ferox into them and Proteus, killing 1 hellmouth, and failing to kill the other or do meaningful damage to Proteus. Rest of the game is a grind where I can't take a flag, and he pushes me out with the hellmouth/rest of his army, and I lose. Feelsbadman

Round 3: Cygnar. I'm worried that all the boosted guns will wipe out Ferox, so I drop Hexy2. Opponent drops Haley2. Scenario is the rectangle in the middle + Objectives, with flags to the sides.

Bottom of 1 I blow the arcnode off of Thorn with my cannoneers, and run scarabs to the center zone. He moves up a unit of stormlances to threaten my flank and feats. Scarabs crawl towards the stormlances, and I feat. Blackspot goes up on the horsemen, and 2 boosted oblits take a few out. Cannoneers stay put and blast 2 more to death. Zaadesh and his gladiator walk up the other side towards the flag (there is a stormwall threatening it), hoping the gladiator will lure the Stormwall in for Zaadesh + Despoiler to wreck it the following turn.

Stormwall kills Zaadesh while punching his gladiator, because forgot about electroleap. Oops. Despoiler beats the shit out of it, then Hexeris punches it some more and takes control of the gladiator. My cannoneers move towards the center still laying down fire on his lights. Then Haley clears the left flag, and starts to score... Stormwall goes down, and I start running to the opposite flank. Unfortunately, some mistakes happen and I camp 2 instead of ripping Thorns final boxes out of him, and can only contest with one cannoneer. She goes down to some shooting, and Haley wins on Scenario.

This was probably the closest game I've had against Haley2. It was great, and I had a ton of fun.

Round 4:

Denny1 vs Rasheth. I have no memory of this game happening. So... yep. Apparently I thought it was a close game though, and didn't blame my models or list for losing it at the time.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS!:

I didn't play in these, but rather helped run them. I pseudo-watched a lot of games, though, and have to say the top of 2 assassination was how a large majority of them ended in both the 50pt SR and the 50pt Speedmachine. It was surprising how frequent they happened, I think the most surprising was watching Kharchev be shot to death by Sloan's army with plenty of shots to spare. Also plenty of Lylyth assassinations, Dwarves, Horseshade. Really most games ended very quickly to ranged assassinations.

100pt Iron Arena Game:

I took pictures of this game, expecting it to be a real slog. I was playing into a Midas list with lots of screening infantry, dropping eXerxis with a bunch of heavies. Top of 2 I blasted a hole using Marketh and cannoneers, and got a rushed/mobility/enraged Tiberion onto Midas with feat up after 1 overtake movement. Squish.... This might be more viable than I thought... Further experimentation is necessary re: Tibbers + Bronzeback + Gladiator etc for non-linear assassination through enemy models. Seems pretty viable as a missile... the new Molik Karn?

Afterthought:

Skorne seems pretty weak, at least into the current meta. We lack the sort of intense ranged assassination lists that can dominate round 2, and are incredibly susceptible to the same without teching against it. That said, we can tech against it, and can field some lists that crush it (Mak2 Double Ferox for example). We're at a point, though, where we aren't really fielding anything terrifying, and have to be reactive. When your entire list building process needs to be reactive rather than proactive, it hurts. Needing to field answers means you have to both know the questions that might be asked, while also dodging things you couldn't account for. I think through proper list building and creative play we can be competitive, but there are too many outliers in other factions for us to have to compete with. Once some balancing catches up to them, I think we'll be in a great place, but for now it seems like a scary world out there where list chicken will dictate a lot of how our games play out (at least in a 2 list format).